Posted
by
samzenpuson Monday November 26, 2012 @12:15PM
from the ask-away dept.

In addition to founding Canonical Ltd., the Ubuntu Foundation, and funding the Freedom Toaster, Mark Shuttleworth is a space enthusiast. In April 2002 Mark became the second self-funded space tourist and the first African in space. He spent eight days participating in experiments on the International Space Station as part of his $20 million trip. Now he's ready to answer your questions. Ask him anything you like, but please limit yourself to one question per post.

Windows 8 has been launched and did not receive a very warm welcome from the market so there's another chance for Ubuntu and although Apple's OS X is a nice alternative, Ubuntu would even be better, however when looking 'in the field' (European Enterprise, SME, ) there is so much Windows (custom applications, custom hardware, widely used applications etc etc etc) that the cost and process of replacing those is too complex and too expensive. And as always, end user like evolution, not revolution.

Wouldn't it be better to integratie a CrossOver alike solution (or Crossover) in Ubuntu that allows easier transition from win32//64 to Ubuntu?

Although it doesn't fully address "WTF?", he has spoken about this in prior interviews [techcentral.co.za]:

DM: Ubuntu has adopted a new user interface called Unity. That seems well suited to tablet devices. Is this part of a plan to extend Ubuntu on tablets and other mobile computing and touch-based platforms?

MS: We haven’t said that, and it’s not the right time for me to say any such thing. [Laughs.] But if you look at it, Unity is born of an era where touch is important, and we’ve done quite a bit of work around touch generally and it brings a level of clarity and device-like simplicity to Linux desktops that just hadn’t been there before.

DM: Unity has attracted a fair share of criticism.

MS: Sure, it created something of a storm. The idea for us was we wanted to bring design-led engineering to the Linux desktop so we followed a fairly rigorous process of design. That meant testing assumptions and evaluating each little change on the basis of some realistic test of how people reacted to change. It is a fairly radical shift from where we were previously but we can see a fairly clear roadmap of where we want to get to over the next few months and years and not all of that is evident in the release so far.

[Unity] has raised the bar for usability on the Linux desktop. That’s not to say it’s without its issues. There are some quite definite issues in that first release, but when we did a detailed review of that versus the alternatives, it came out well ahead. It was the right one for us to ship at the time.

Since the Ubuntu project is committed to free software and the freedom entailed by it, I believe that underlying must also be commitment to the freedom of the donation flows which make this development possible. With PayPal and other companies arbitrarily withholding payments, based on competitve interest or government pressure, WordPress and others have taken a big leap forward in accepting Bitcoin for donations, because they have opened themselves up to donations from vast sections of the world left unserved by the traditional payment processors.

With that progress ongoing, what steps is Canonical taking, if any, to engage in the nascent Bitcoin economy?